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March 3, 2012 Only: Get Karen Kingsbury’s “Bailey Flanigan” eBooks 70% Off

 

(Update on March 4, 2012 – The Kindle Daily Deal for Bailey Flanigan eBooks is now closed. Thank you to everyone who joined us in congratulating @karenkingsbury yesterday, and everyone else who participated! -Adam Forrest, Zondervan)

We're excited for novelist Karen Kingsbury because Amazon.com hand-picked her Bailey Flanigan series as a Kindle Daily Deal! 

Today [March 3] only, the first three volumes in the Bailey Flanigan series (Leaving, Learning, and Longing) are 70% off, just $2.99 apiece. Since the special will disappear when the clock strikes midnight, we recommend you take advantage of the deal right now! [The Kindle Daily Deal is no longer related to Karen Kingsbury]

Find the Bailey Flanigan eBooks in the Kindle Store

  

If you use a Nook or iPad…

Find the Bailey Flanigan eBooks here:

Barnes and Noble Learn More
iTunes Store Learn More
Christianbook.com Learn More

 

About the Bailey Flanigan Series

The latest series of novels from Karen Kingsbury begins with Bailey Flanigan leaving Bloomington for the adventure of a lifetime. Featuring members of the popular Baxter family, this series will present the much-anticipated finale of the Bailey Flanigan & Cody Coleman story. 

 

Buy Book 1 for KindleLeaving (Volume 1)
Bailey's won an audition for a Broadway musical in New York City, and she's determined to take advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! But is she really ready to leave family and friends for the loneliness of the big city? And what of Cody? With him in Indianapolis, the distance, new friends and circumstances begin to reveal cracks in their relationship. Buy for Kindle

 

Buy Book 2 for Kindle

Learning (Volume 2)
While Bailey grows closer to her dream of being an actress and dancer in New York, Cody becomes immersed in the lives of the high school football team he is coaching. Neither Bailey nor Cody feel complete without the chance to share their dreams with one other, but can distance truly make the heart grow fonder? Or will Cody turn to others, especially when tragedy strikes? Buy for Kindle

 

Buy Book 3 for Kindle

Longing (Volume 3)
After a long and lonely silence from Cody Coleman, Bailey Flanigan becomes closer to her one-time Hollywood co-star, Brandon Paul. Nights on the town in New York City and long talks on the balcony of Brandon's Malibu Beach home make Bailey dizzy with new feelings and cause her to wonder if her days with Cody are over forever. Buy for Kindle

 

 

About Karen Kingsbury

New York Times bestselling author Karen Kingsbury is America's favorite inspirational novelist, with over 20 million books in print. Her Life-Changing Fiction™ has produced multiple bestsellers, including Leaving, Take One, Between Sundays, Even Now, One Tuesday Morning, Beyond Tuesday Morning, and Ever After. Karen is also a nationally known speaker with several women's groups. Find out more about Karen, her books, and her appearance schedule at www.KarenKingsbury.com and visit her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/AuthorKarenKingsbury

 

More to Come for the Baxter Family Characters
Loving (Bailey Flanigan Series, Volume 4) hits stores on March 27. In the fourth and final book of the series, Bailey is planning a wedding. But is she marrying the right man? (This volume is available for pre-order, but it's not included in the Kindle Daily Deal or Gold Box New Deal.)

Coming Home: A Story of Unending Love and Eternal Promise hits stores June 26, 2012. As the Baxters make plans to come together for a summer lakeside reunion, the unthinkable happens. Coming Home — a stand-alone novel — can serve as either a grand introduction or a beautiful conclusion to the saga of the Baxter Family.

Find the Bailey Flanigan eBooks in the Kindle Store

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King Jesus, His Gospel, and Us: Recap of N.T. Wright’s January Series Message

 

Yesterday the venerable N.T. Wright concluded the 2012 January Series of Calvin College with a message on Christ's kingship, and its import for the daily life of his followers. I couldn't attend the event, but Press reporter Matt Vande Bunte offers a pithy recap of Wright's presentation.

NT Wright

Image via MLive Media Group. View Original

In one of his more provocative points, Wright suggests that Christians inadvertently water down the gospel if they fixate on the death-and-resurrection part of the story. Here Vande Bunte quotes Wright:

 *While some [secular thinkers] downplay Christ's divinity [by imagining] Jesus as a great social worker "being kind to old ladies, small dogs and little children," orthodox Christianity "has not wanted Jesus to have a political message." Christians have turned off parts of the gospel, like turning down the volume on a song. But the biblical gospels must be listened to in symphony, "like a musical score that demands to be played."

*Heard in full sound, the gospels tell about the establishment of a theocracy, and portray what theocracy looks like with Jesus as king. The body of the texts – the parts between Jesus' birth and death – present "an entire agenda for renewed humanity. When God wants to reign, he doesn't send in the tanks. He sends in the meek, the broken-hearted, the crushed in spirit. We've all got it horribly wrong in all sorts of ways."

In other words, Wright says that to limit our gospel proclamation to the death-and-resurrection story would be like fast-forwarding through Handel's Messiah to the Hallelujah Chorus, then playing that part over, and over, and over again. As we limit our study and consumption of the gospel in this way, we truncate the gospel's power in our lives and in our world.

Wright's call to a more full, symphonic view of the gospel reminds me of Scot McKnight's latest book, The King Jesus Gospel, to which Wright actually contributed a foreword. You can read Wright's foreword in this excerpt of The King Jesus Gospel.

If you read Matt Van Bunte's full report of Wright's January Series appearance, I would be very interested in hearing your reaction to Wright's message. Leave your comments on this post.

 

Also of Interest

Learn more about Surprised by Hope DVD Study
Learn More

1. Watch Session One from Wright's Surprised by Hope DVD Study. Discussed: The source of Christian hope; Jesus as king; the church as people of hope.

2. Watch N.T. Wright's presentation How God Became King at Moody Bible Institute in November 2011.

3. Interested in Scot McKnight's The King Jesus Gospel? Read this unconventional yet appropriate review,  Interview with a Christian Vampire. (Full disclosure: I wrote the review.)

4. Update 1/26/12 – Find comprehensive coverage & commentary on Wright's appearance in So, who's up for a little theocracy?, a fine blog post by Ben Irwin (@benirwin).

- Adam Forrest, Zondervan

 

(This post does not represent the views of Zondervan or any of its representatives. The writer's opinions are their own, and are shared for information purposes only. To receive new blogposts in your reader or email inbox, subscribe to Zondervan Blog.)

 

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Disciples of Distraction: Reflecting on Technology, Hope and Despair

 

The annual January Series of Calvin College in Zondervan's hometown of Grand Rapids, MI, is a delight for anyone excited by the intersection of faith and culture.

If you're intrigued by how technology transforms our behavior and brains, this year's January Series boasted a special treat. The presentation delivered by Sherry Turkle, MIT professor and clinical psychologist, was called "Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other." (The lecture was related to Prof. Turkle's book of the same name.)

While I was not able to attend the presentation, Zondervan author Mike Wittmer was there, and he published an excellent summary of Turkle's points on his blog. I found this point particularly stirring:

[Turkle says] People who must constantly check their phone for new messages say that their mobile device feels like a place of hope. They desperately want the message they find there to make their lives interesting.

[Wittmer adds] This reminds me of what the medieval Christians called sloth. Sloth … is the sin of distraction, which is rooted in despair. Is it a coincidence that our Age of Distraction is also an Age of Despair?

People see their mobile device as a place of hope? I have felt a little tingle of hope before logging on to Facebook, and my shoulders slumped whenever new activity failed to deliver whatever abstract commodity I was looking for. I didn't think I was looking for sources of hope and joy, but I think that was (at least part of) my motivation.

 

Learn more about The Next Story
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But before we all throw our iPhones on a pyre, let's remember some salient points from Tim Challies's recent book on  technology, The Next Story:

"[It] is not the technology itself that is good or evil; it is the human application of that technology."

"Rather than changing the technology to fit our understanding of what is right and wrong, we change ourselves and our society's rules and mores, and we reshape ourselves in the image of the mobile phone."

"That iPhone in your pocket is not an 'evil' device. Yet it is prone to draw your heart away from God, to distract you and enable you to rely on your own abilities rather than trusting God."

"Our task, then, is not to avoid technology but to carefully evaluate it, redeem it, and ensure that we are using it with the right motives and for the right goals."

From the 50-some pages I've read of Challies' The Next Story, it's valuable for helping us see how our favorite technologies affect us. (That's just my opinion. You can read an excerpt of The Next Story on Scribd.)

What do you think about all of this?

Are you more distracted, or less distracted, than you were ten years ago?

Mike Wittmer reminds us that medieval Christians linked distraction to despair. Do you think despair is a motivation behind some of your technology habits?

 

More about Tim Challies & The Next Story

A pastor, speaker, and author, Tim Challies (@challies) is a pioneer in the Christian blogosphere. Over 20,000 people visit Challies.com each day, making it one of the most widely read and recognized Christian blogs in the world. Tim is also the editor of DiscerningReader.com, a site dedicated to offering thoughtful reviews of books that are of interest to Christians. Tim is the author of The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment and Sexual Detox. (Learn more about Challies's books and eBooks.)

 

More about Mike Wittmer

Michael Wittmer is professor of systematic and historical theology at Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, and his books for Zondervan include Heaven is a Place on Earth: Why Everything Matters to God, and Don't Stop Believing: Why Living Like Jesus Is Not Enough. Visit his blog at mikewittmer.wordpress.com.

 

Hear author Gabe Lyons & N.T. Wright at the January Series 2012

Listen to these Zondervan authors' presentations live-stream online:

 

(This post does not represent the views of Zondervan or any of its representatives. The writer's opinions are their own, and are shared for information purposes only. To receive new blogposts in your reader or email inbox, subscribe to Zondervan Blog.)

 

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Blog Tour: “Thunder of Heaven” by Tim LaHaye, Craig Parshall

 

Leaving
Learn More

We’re giving away 40 copies of Thunder of Heaven to bloggers for review! Sign up below, and if your blog is selected we’ll ship a copy of the book to you.

Written by Tim LaHaye and Craig Parshall, Thunder of Heaven: The End Series, Vol. 2 is an epic thrill ride ripped from the headlines of today and filtered through Scriptural prophecy. As world events begin to set the stage for the “end of days” foretold in Revelation, Joshua Jordan must weigh the personal price he must pay to save the nation he loves. (Thunder of Heaven is the brand new sequel to Edge of Apocalypse: The End Series, Vol. 1.)

 

Sign Up for the Thunder of Heaven Blog Tour

  1. Fill out the form below by Sunday, July 3. If your blog is selected, we’ll ship a copy of Thunder of Heaven to you.
  2. Post your review on your blog during the week of August 8. Then link to your review in a comment here on Zondervan Blog, because we’d like to hear your thoughts on the story!
  3. Post your review on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or your favorite book retailer’s website.
  4. Please mention in your review that Zondervan provided you with the book free of charge, for the purpose of review.

 

 (DON’T SEE A SIGNUP FORM? Go here.)

 

Learn more about Thunder of Heaven
Read the first chapters on Scribd
Find Colonel Jordan on Facebook

 

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Karen Kingsbury Blog Tour: Sign up to Review “Learning”

 

Learning
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Update: Eight reviewers were selected and the books have been shipped. Thanks to everyone who entered!

We’re giving away 8 copies of Karen Kingsbury’s latest novel Learning to bloggers for review! Sign up below, and if your blog is selected we’ll ship you a review copy of Learning, Volume 2 in the Bailey Flanigan Series.

Karen Kingsbury’s new novel Learning picks up where Leaving left off: Bailey Flanigan and Cody Coleman are separated by both physical and great emotional distance. Can distance truly make the heart grow fonder? Find out in this poignant love story that features characters from Karen Kingsbury’s popular Baxter family.

 

The Learning Blog Tour
If your blog was selected, you will receive your copy of Leaving soon.

 

  1. Post your review on your blog during the week of 7/11. Please link to your review in a comment here on Zondervan Blog, because we’d like to hear your thoughts on the story!
  2. Please post your review on amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, christianbook.com, or your favorite book retailer’s website.
  3. In your review please mention that Zondervan gave you a free copy for the purpose of honest review. Thanks!

 

More About Learning: Bailey Flanigan Series, Volume 2
Learning picks up where Leaving ended. While Bailey grows closer to her dream of being an actress and dancer in New York, Cody becomes immersed in the lives of the high school football team he is coaching. Neither Bailey nor Cody feel complete without the chance to share their dreams with one other, but can distance truly make the heart grow fonder? Or will Cody turn to others, especially when tragedy strikes? As Cody’s past catches up with him, he must learn to reach out for help or risk withdrawing permanently inside himself… Learn More

 

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Easter Story: Maundy Thursday

The plot for Jesus' life comes to a head on Maundy Thursday. Listen to it here.

 

On Maundy Thursday…
"This is my blood…"

 

Listen to the Story

Listen to the Story

-Audio from The Bible Experience

 

Read Along (Luke 22:7-65)

Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, "Go and make preparations for us to eat the Passover." "Where do you want us to prepare for it?" they asked. He replied, "As you enter the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him to the house that he enters, and say to the owner of the house, 'The Teacher asks: Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?' He will show you a large room upstairs, all furnished. Make preparations there." They left and found things just as Jesus had told them. So they prepared the Passover.

 

When the hour came, Jesus and his apostles reclined at the table. And he said to them, "I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God." After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, "Take this and divide it among you. For I tell you I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes." And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me." In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you. But the hand of him who is going to betray me is with mine on the table. The Son of Man will go as it has been decreed. But woe to that man who betrays him!" They began to question among themselves which of them it might be who would do this.

 

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Easter Story: Holy Tuesday

Listen to the third part of the Easter Story Blog Series. 

 

On Holy Tuesday … Tricks and Traps …

 

Listen to the Story

Listen to the Story

-Audio from The Bible Experience

 

Read Along (Mark 11:20 – 12:34)

In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. Peter remembered and said to Jesus, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!” “Have faith in God,” Jesus answered. “Truly I tell you, if you say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and do not doubt in your heart but believe that what you say will happen, it will be done for you. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.”

 

They arrived again in Jerusalem, and while Jesus was walking in the temple courts, the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders came to him. “By what authority are you doing these things?” they asked. “And who gave you authority to do this?” Jesus replied, “I will ask you one question. Answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things. John’s baptism—was it from heaven, or of human origin? Tell me!” They discussed it among themselves and said, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will ask, ‘Then why didn’t you believe him?’ But if we say, ‘Of human origin’…” (They feared the people, for everyone held that John really was a prophet.) So they answered Jesus, “We don’t know.” Jesus said, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.”

 

Jesus then began to speak to them in parables: “A man planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a pit for the winepress and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place. At harvest time he sent a servant to the tenants to collect from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. But they seized him, beat him and sent him away empty-handed. Then he sent another servant to them; they struck this man on the head and treated him shamefully. He sent still another, and that one they killed. He sent many others; some of them they beat, others they killed. “He had one left to send, a son, whom he loved. He sent him last of all, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ “But the tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ So they took him and killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard. “What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others. Haven’t you read this passage of Scripture: “‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes’?” Then the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders looked for a way to arrest him because they knew he had spoken the parable against them. But they were afraid of the crowd; so they left him and went away.

 

Later they sent some of the Pharisees and Herodians to Jesus to catch him in his words. They came to him and said, “Teacher, we know that you are a man of integrity. You aren’t swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who they are; but you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not? Should we pay or shouldn’t we?” But Jesus knew their hypocrisy. “Why are you trying to trap me?” he asked. “Bring me a denarius and let me look at it.” They brought the coin, and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?” “Caesar’s,” they replied. Then Jesus said to them, “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.” And they were amazed at him.

 

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Easter Story Series: Palm Sunday

Listen to the first installment in the Easter Story Blog Series. It's like hearing the Easter events for the first time, in real time.

 

On Palm Sunday … The King Approaches

 

Listen to the Story

Listen to the Story

-Audio from The Bible Experience

 

Read Along (Matthew 21:1-11, 14-17)

As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, "Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, say that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away." This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet: "Say to Daughter Zion, 'See, your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.'" The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. They brought the donkey and the colt and placed their cloaks on them for Jesus to sit on.

A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted, "Hosanna to the Son of David!" "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!" "Hosanna in the highest heaven!" When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, "Who is this?" The crowds answered, "This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee" …

 

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